Comments (31)

With the housing crisis at the minute, I can see why it would make sense for people to downsize once they’re family were grown up and gone but that’s their home. The place they’ve raised their family, the place they’ve made their memories. Most old people have probably lived in their homes for years, it’s most likely where they feel safest. I also can’t help but think why should they hand over something they’ve paid for all their life? What if one of their children need to move back in?

Logic would tell you that they should pack their bags and sling their hook to the nearest accessible flat or ickle bungalow. Especially if social housing.

The heart tells you that is their home, where they have lived their life and where they feel best, it’s not just bricks it’s part of them, interwoven memories, full of trinkets and treasures of a lifetime.

Finance will tell you that they’ve earnt it, and if they can afford to maintain it then it’s none of your business!

Why should people be forced to leave their homes? Do you think that once your kids have moved out, you’re redundant? Decrepit?

My mum’s 70 and has a 3 bed house. A family does use it. Her family, when we go and stay. She also has friends to stay because she’s still the same person she’s always been - she didn’t turn into a different species at retirement age.

Ageism is still acceptable in our society.

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All that is left for us to do is to keep on working as hard as we can and rebuild what is lost.

I’ve shared this story before on another housing thread but my granny moved here from Gibraltar, she married my grandad and they moved into their home, it was the only home she’d really ever known. Fast forward 40+ years and the house wasn’t up to the regulations anymore and needed some work done. We moved to temporary housing and my granny hated it. While living in the temp house she had 2/3 falls and she said it was because she didn’t “know” the house, it really upset her and knocked her confidence. When our house was finished and we moved back my granny was devastated, it was no longer her home. It was beautiful and modern and up to standard but it wasn’t her home. She cried and cried for days, she was raging she had agreed to have the work done, she wasn’t ungrateful by any means, she was just heartbroken at how the whole layout of her home had been changed. She lasted about 6 months in the new house before she passed away.

Forced to sell their home? Absolutely not! It’s their home full of memories and where they raised their family. They also paid for that house so why should they just give it up.

That said I do sometimes think that some people in social house who rent should be forced to downsize. My mil (mother-in-law) is in her 60s and has a 3 bed from the housing association here. There’s a desperate shortage of housing stock here. She should be made to downsize but she refuses, they’ve offered her loads of alternatives and gave her money for removal costs (which she used for a holiday ffs). It’s not like she’s lived their all her life, 20 years at most. I think some people can be very selfish.

It doesn’t make a difference to me if it’s privately owned or rented housing. I think there should be more housing available and until there is, moving people around is just tinkering at the edges.

My mum volunteers working with a woman in her 90s who lives by herself in a council flat. She feels that she’d like to live in sheltered housing now so my mum made enquiries and found there’s a 3 - 4 year waiting list. For obvious reasons, that’s not suitable.

We’re too quick to blame each other for the ways we’ve been let down by successive governments.

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All that is left for us to do is to keep on working as hard as we can and rebuild what is lost.

It doesn’t make a difference to me if it’s privately owned or rented hous...

Posted
08/06/2018

It doesn’t make a difference to me if it’s privately owned or rented housing. I think there should be more housing available and until there is, moving people around is just tinkering at the edges.

My mum volunteers working with a woman in her 90s who lives by herself in a council flat. She feels that she’d like to live in sheltered housing now so my mum made enquiries and found there’s a 3 - 4 year waiting list. For obvious reasons, that’s not suitable.

We’re too quick to blame each other for the ways we’ve been let down by successive governments.

Yeah I think your probably right. It’s easy to blame a single person for taking up a house but the real issue is there just aren’t enough houses

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